September 11 & bring non-perishable food to Rosh Hashanah Evening Services and Kol Nidre

Fourteen years.

Every child that celebrates becoming a bar or bat mitzvah today was not born yet on 9/11/01.  How do we share with them the chaos of that world, how illusions were shattered?

One answer is here:
http://www.kveller.com/heres-what-i-said-and-didnt-say-when-talking-to-my-son-about-911/

As I sit today, trying to prepare for Shabbat, trying to ensure that the Torahs are rolled for tomorrow, and Rosh Hashanah, I think of those who were murdered on this date.

My career, my job, my life is about hope.  It is about kindling the spark of the Divine within us all, so that it burns brighter, inspiring us to lives of greater action, greater meaning, deeper prayer, kedushah, holiness.   Yet some days, we feel the darkness of the world.  Today is one of those days.

A google search tells me this is a Chinese proverb "Don't curse the darkness, light a candle." As Jews, bringing light to the world is a part of everything we do.  Every holiday, every festival includes kindling light.  We are commanded to do so.

September 11 put out the lights of so many, and yet the Red Cross couldn't keep up in accepting blood donations.  People devoted their lives for days and months and years helping to clear the pile, to find every person that could be found.

May this day remind us that evil exists

And that it is not wrong to fight it.

Yet each day we pray for peace 

And work towards it.

Let us see the humanity in every child

No matter what their parents have done.

Let us build a world of loved

Where no child is left behind.

Ashrei teaches

פּוֹתֵחַ אֶת יָדֶךָ וּמַשְׂבִּיעַ לְכָל חַי רָצוֹן

"You (God) open your hand and provide for all our needs."

You have provided, now we must distribute. 

If we have enough to eat, we MUST share with those who do not.

In this way we can inspire hope, love, Godliness to the entire world.

Tonight we light (at least) two candles to celebrate Shabbat.  Rabbi Zoe Klein reminds us of how else we might think of them today, on this anniversary.

Before Kaddish http://urj.org/worship/prayers/sept11/?syspage=article&item_id=4111&printable=1

On Shabbat we would light two candles,

One for remembering Shabbat

And one for observing Shabbat.

Tonight we light these two candles.

This one is for Building One,

And this one for Building Two.

This one is for the Pentagon,

And this one is for Pittsburgh

This one is for those on the American Airline Flights,

And this one for those on the United Airline Flights.

This one for the hundreds of firefighters,

And this one for the hundreds of police.

This one for all the men,

And this one for all the women.

This one for all the girls,

And this one for all the boys.

This one for our luck running out,

This one for the New York skyline,

This one for the walking wounded,

This one for the critically wounded.

This one for the survivors,

This one for the dead.

This candle for Building One,

This candle for Building Two.

(Adapted from Rabbi Zoe Klein)